The Ex Strikes Again.

The other day there was a mysterious message on my answering machine from my car insurance company, ask me to give their claims department a call. Weird.

Car insurance chick: We got a call from a woman claiming that your car was in an accident with hers, and the driver was refusing to take responsibly.
Me: What?
Car insurance chick: Apparently your Dad was driving.
Me: My Dad has never driven my car, and it hasn't been in an accident... ever.
Car insurance chick: Oh, and apparently the owner of the car was overseas at the time.
Me: Ok... I've never been overseas...
Car insurance chick: Well, I have no idea what's going on.
Me: And my car is fine, I had it serviced on Monday.
Car insurance chick: I guess we'll have to mark it down as a mistake...
Me: Hang on a sec... There used to be another car and another person on my car insurance. Did they mention a large black Magna?
Car insurance chick: No.
Me: Or where the accident is supposed to have happened?
Car insurance chick: No.
Me: Anyway, the other name on the insurance policy was [the Ex], she owns the car now. And she's overseas.
Car insurance chick: Yeah?
Me: Maybe what's happened is that she left her car with her Dad...
Car insurance chick: And he's had an accident in it and given them our details! Ah...
Me: Yes, just between you and me he was a bit of a mad driver. [The ex] canceled the insurance with you guys and went with AAMI, I think.
Car insurance chick: Ah, that's probably what's happened, and somehow it's ended up on your file.
Me: Exactly. Now, how do I go about getting her name off my policy???

The car in question, a big ugly black V6 Magna with lowered suspension (went like a rocket on the freeway :-) used to belong to her parents. So it would make sense for them to be baby sitting it while She is overseas. And her dad wrote off THREE motorcycles when I knew him, that'll tell you what kind of driver he is...

Turns out the only way to get her name off my policy was to cancel it and get a new policy. How stupid is that? I did it anyway, had to go through the whole process, including giving them all my details again. Thirty five minutes later, I have a new policy - having had to cough up the first premium on my credit card. Grr... Why has it taken me eighteen months to dis-engage???

Normal Normal Normal.

What does one have to do to join a normal family? My mother was pictured in the local Geelong paper, at a protest... With John Howard's head on a plate...

Chest Full of Democracy

I don't buy Rap Records no more. Back in the late Eighties I had a lot of Ice-T, Public Enemy and eventually NWA, Run DMC, LL Cool J and The Beastie Boys (my secret shame :-) Frankly as far as I'm concerned, Rap peaked in about 1989 with Public Enemy's "Fear Of a Black Planet". The last Rap record I bought was Chuck D's solo album from the mid 90's. Although I did see them live in 1998 and caught Grandmasaster Flash at the Prince of Wales earlier this century.

Discounting my recent interest in Nerdcore aside of course :-)

Anyway, I was downloading music a while back - something I do very rarely - and found a stray track with Jello Biafra's name on it. Jello gets around, turns up on a lot of other people's albums. In fact he did a track with Ice-T in the late eighties called "Shut Up, Be Happy." This one track I downloaded turned out to be about the Republican party, and was by a guy called Cage. I think DJ Shadow also had a hand in it, which might explain the great grinding backing track.

I liked it a lot, went and bought the album. This Cage seems more interesting than your average suburban white boy rapper, as his biography shows. Grew up on army bases with his junkie dad, spent some time in a mental hospital as a teenager - fun fun stuff. There's a little more about him and his band The Weathermen on the wiki and over on his Myspace page. Calling his band "The Weathermen" is also interesting, they were a group of hippy revolutionaries from the 60's who went about blowing up buildings! I kid you not!

So, cop an eyefull of these lyrics:

Cage - Grand ol' Party Crash (feat. Jello Biafra as The Dubya)
I wake up to a caffeine cigarette vaccine
then bathe in water I wouldn't drink before gasoline
feel like a loser cuz I'm not in Fallujah
paintin' a land cruiser with an Iraqi then taking his luger
no M-16 to give me a callus
inhuman super malice for GOP Uber Alles
baby suicide bombers hurdle suitcases in a nursery
I'm in a deli eatin' tuna tasting the mercury
Then try to wash it down with a two dollar bottle of water
get on the train and think of terrorists with box cutters
Gun concealer cuz I see a realer reality
and what I breathe through my nasal cavities is killing my batteries
Bombs in metropolis out all eye sockets esophagus melted out some Shiite group will get their props for this look
I need petrol for my Mercedes but I'm not trying to kneel or bow for Emperor Cheney (NO!)
Maybe I'm crazy but I will not just follow the herd unless of course it's en route to lynch Mike Bloomberg
Being pimped by a gas pump and all it's Saudi members are like 'fuck you' with New York''s two middle fingers.
If the opposite of pro is a con then look beyond this, the opposite of congress must be progress
What if the second coming's aborted and put in the dirt?
I still don't know what to wear with this orange alert

American flags fly morale's high
A unit of 20 or so repelling from Apaches in the sky into a village of killers
little Jimmy from Jackson
Mississippi just graduated and seeing action
M-16 locked, loaded and spitting properly whoever's in that line of line of fire chest full of democracy
Turn the corner team leader neck up to the nose gone blown off
this is not PS2's SOCCOM
Jimmy stays so calm
shoots count nothin' riddled in his back
answers come flying out of his stomach
face down then it's face up in a bed almost dead eyes slowly open I.V. bag and no legs
A couple sandwiches, some bloody bandages in a room full of amputee G.I amateurs
he gets the word that his unit didn't make it got a free ticket home and flatlined before he got to take it

Cops tape the scene up gunner downs 9 they're chasin' away kids playin' hop-scotch in his chalk outline
Two F-16's screech an iridescent sky look down we're not in Iraq we're in NY
Rats in the streets we move underground like earthworms two coasts couldn't abort Satan in his first term
The army in the subway walkin' with toolies
I'm on the train with the back of the dollar bill still talkin' to me
Drive with my left I know what's right my weapon hand like the map of DC streets still shows a pentagram
License on the car window when I pass through you've seen the news, no joke New York pig department will blast you
My Weatherman party is invite only soldier cuz with one wave of King G Dub's scepter it's over
the right to assemble puts the bureau's team on you look into my file and nod to this while Jello screams on you

(It's also actually littered with a lot of George W Bush quotes yelled by Jello Biafra... "I believe that humans and fish can co-exist peacefully" etc. You get the idea.)